Our Wonderful Pension Service

On the 7th of February 2011 I applied for Pension Credit.On the 18th of July 2011 I received my first weekly payment.The intervening 23 weeks have been a joke...if it wasn't so serious.I have spoken to six 'customer advisers' and finally two senior managers over the period in order to get the claim moving and also visited Citizen's Advice who called and spoke to them without any real progress..It was only when I escalated the problem to the second senior manager and mentioned the Chief Executive of The Pension Service (Complaints) that things were sorted.....fingers crossed.This is the first time for a number of years that I have made any kind of benefit claim and the way it has progressed I am not happy Needless to say the associated paperwork will not be filed away for a little while yet.

Re: Our Wonderful Pension Service

@HPsauce The gentleman I spoke to at the Citizen's Advice gave me a leaflet from my local MP and suggested I contact her....I haven't yet.He did add that in his experience such benefit claims generally go through quite quickly...far quicker than mine.@Pierré...British unfortunately

Re: Our Wonderful Pension Service

I have had to write to my MP regarding a problem affecting a group I am a member of. I emailed him on Sunday. Received an acknowledgment and today received an email from him outlining the action he has taken. Can't complain at his actions to date.

Re: Our Wonderful Pension Service

I requested that my claim be backdated to the 15th of November 2010, which it was and I received a single payment into my bank on the 29th of March 2011 allegedly to cover that period....it didn't.The whole process froze from there.I was told that the reason it had stalled was because of the size of the single payment required to bring it up to date and it needed senior authorisation in order for it to be paid so everyone simply sat on it.However the size of the single payment was because the claim had stalled The moral of the story is if you get no satisfaction from the Pension Service CSC on the first call, escalate it to their equivalent of Digital Care where stuff gets sorted.

Re: Our Wonderful Pension Service

Not having heard of Pension Credit before i did a bit of digging.Is this example correctI am 61 years old and have retired from work but my pension isn't payable until I am 65 I have no other income and less than £10,000 savingsPension credit £137 per week until I am 65